Category: Appearances

For a few years now the American Library Association has put together a huge gaming event called International Games Week. The idea is simple. Get people to play games and use the local library as a great community space to do it! This year, Fireside Games is going to be participating here in our great town of Austin.

The event runs from November 4th through the 10th, but Justin and Anne-Marie will be spending this Saturday, November 10th at the Austin Central Library (the one with the 37 foot tall Grackle inspired sculpture!) running free demos of a bunch of games.

The Library is at 710 W. César Chávez St. and the gaming will be all the way up on the 6th floor. The event goes from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and our friends from Steve Jackson Games will be there as well, so there’s really no reason not to come join the fun.

If you’re looking for an event in your neck of the woods, check out the ALA’s website, where they have information about all the goings on. In addition, here’s a great map that shows all the libraries around the world that will be participating in IGW!

Can’t make it out to a library, or there isn’t an event near you? Not to worry. ALA has you covered with an entire page full of links to FREE Print-and-play games! Give your printer and your scissors a workout and you can get in on the fun as well.

No matter how you celebrate it, we hope you have a great time spreading the awesomeness that is board gaming during International Games Week!

Wow, it feels like we were just at Origins, and it’s time for Gen Con! Our plans are coming together smoothly, and we can’t wait to see you all there.

Drop by and hang out with us in booth 1349. We’ll have fun showing you our new games, giving out promos for those games, and offering you some special convention deals. We’ll even have limited quantities of both Hotshots and Kaiju Crush available for sale.

Demos: If you are looking to try out our new games, Hotshots and Kaiju Crush, we can set you up. We’ll also have demos of Here, Kitty, Kitty! and Dastardly Dirigibles, quick games that will keep you going.

Promos: With a demo or purchase of our new games, you can pick up the special River Tile promo for Hotshots and the Oblique-Checkerboard promo card for Kaiju Crush.

Deals: In addition to all of the games in our catalog, we will have bundles, jewelry for Here, Kitty, Kitty!, a special discount bin, and promo specials.

Events: And if that’s not enough, we’ll have ticketed events with all of the following games in Hall D through Double Exposure. (Thank you, guys!) Players will be given a coupon worth $5 on a purchase of $25 or more.

We’re taking to the road on our Smash and Burn Tour! Join us in person or through social media as we visit 16 stores in the Midwest. We’ll be demoing our new releases, Hotshots and Kaiju Crush, and giving out promos. It’ll be a great opportunity to meet Justin De Witt, designer of Castle Panic, Hotshots, and more. Bring in your favorite Fireside Games, and he’ll be happy to sign them. You might also make it into our store videos!For more information on the games, check out these links:

Join Steve Jackson Games and Munchkin Panic designers Justin and Anne-Marie De Witt from Fireside Games on Facebook Live this Thursday, 5/4, at 5:30 p.m. Central time for a Q&A about the game! We’ll also be giving out a copy of Munchkin Panic, signed by Steve Jackson!

Here’s your chance to ask us all those burning Munchkin Panic questions you’ve been storing up! You have been storing your burning questions haven’t you? Ask your questions with the tag #AskFireside and we’ll pick the best to answer on stream! Tune in to the SJ Games Facebook page for the live stream!

Last weekend was Wizard World Comic Con Austin, and it was a great show!

We arrived on Thursday to set up our booth and were immediately put in a good mood. The Austin Convention Center is what’s known as a “Drive-On” show, which means they allow vendors to drive their vehicles right onto the show floor to load and unload. Since we usually have to transport all of our booth materials into a show from parking lots that are far away, we really appreciate this. Boy does being able to park the van right next to the booth make setup easy!

The show started on Friday afternoon, and we immediately got to work showing people all the fun to be had with cats, airships, and spaceships. Comic Cons are known for lots of amazing costumes, cosplay, and crazy creatures, and Austin was no exception. The aisles were filled with bow-tied Doctors, Harley Quinns, Stormtroopers, and more. We managed to grab a few photos of some of our favorites, including this amazing rendition of Khan.

See more at http://bit.ly/2d4tefv

We also fell in love with/were terrified by this father and son Predator duo.

Did you notice what he’s holding?

Of course, another big draw to a Comic Con is the chance to meet all sorts of celebrities from movies, TV, books, and all corners of the geek universe. This show featured Sebastian Shaw (The Winter Solider), Bruce Campbell, and tons of other famous faces. We’ll admit you don’t get into the board game hobby without being a bit of a geek yourself, and we weren’t going to miss the opportunity to meet some of our favorites. Since we just happened to have Star Trek Panic with us, and William Shatner was at the show (coincidence?), we had to get a photo taken of all of us.

He was super nice, and it was great to meet the man behind the Captain in person after all these years!

He even autographed a copy of the game.

There were two more guests that I was especially excited to see. If you saw the TableTop episode featuring Castle Panic, you might remember Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt being pretty darn entertaining. Well, they were at the show this weekend, and I can confirm that they are also pretty darn nice people! Not only did they happily sign my copy of Castle Panic, but we chatted for a few minutes. I learned they still play the game at home, and I even got to hug Yuri. It was pretty awesome!

I now have signatures from 3 of the 4 players on the Castle Panic TableTop episode on 1 cover. All I need is Andre the Black Nerd, and I’ll have the complete set!

I took a side trip to get my album cover to the original Flash Gordon soundtrack signed by Flash Gordon himself, Sam Jones! Hey, it can’t ALL be about work, right?

It turns out that we even made a (very) short appearance on the local morning news show when they did a feature on the convention. How cool is that?!

We met tons of great people at the show and had a blast introducing people to our hobby. If it sounds like something you’d like to experience for yourself, there is probably a Comic Con coming to a city near you. Check out their complete schedule here, and let your geek flag fly. Trust us, it’s worth it!

Final preparations are underway for Gen Con 2016, and we couldn’t be more excited! We’ll have free demos, promos, events, and all kinds of fun!

Free Demos in Booth #743: Want to check out the latest games from Fireside? This is the best way to make sure you’re taught the rules correctly with friendly people who want to make sure your experience is great. We’ll be demoing Star Trek Panic, Here, Kitty, Kitty!, Dastardly Dirigibles, and Bears! in booth #743.

Extras: Dastardly Dirigibles winners can pose with the dapper Heir-on-a-Stick to show their win to the world. And purchasers of Star Trek Panic receive a spare U.S.S. Enterprise! It’ll look great on your desk. That is, until you need to replace the one in your game after all of that damage!

Events: This year, Fireside Games is hosting events for the first time! We sold out of our original events within 3 days and opened up more. Just 4 seats remain open. One for Dead Panic, and three for The Village Crone. Click here to sign up. After you click on the link, select the Board Game category to find our events. Hope to see you there!

Origins Game Fair was last week and it was a blast! We had a booth in the Main Exhibit Hall and ran demos of Here, Kitty, Kitty!, Dastardly Dirigibles (releasing July 6), and Star TrekTMPanic® (available now!). Our booth was so busy and we got to see so many familiar faces and make some new friends.

Dastardly Dirigibles gets some pre-release demo time. Look for this title on July 6!

Star Trek Panic made its covention debut and received high praise from players.

We had the designer of Here, Kitty, Kitty! in the booth playing with attendees and the artist, Tony Steele, was back in the art area drawing cats on boxes for anyone who picked up a copy and asked nicely.

Star TrekTMPanic® received lots of attention and we had demo after demo of excited gamers devouring the latest variation in the Panic Line.

Saturday of the show happened to coincide with International Panic Day and it was fun to see Social Media explode with posts from Friendly Local Game Stores around the country hosting events in-store to celebrate the day, while we played the latest variation with attendees at the show.

The biggest thrill of the show was at the Origins Awards ceremony Saturday night when it was revealed The Dark Titan, the second expansion to Castle Panic®, was the winner of the Fan Favorite award for the Gaming Accessory category! Thanks fans!

Anne-Marie De Witt accepting the award for Fan Favorite Game Accessory for The Dark Titan expansion to Castle Panic. (Photo Credit: The GameBoard, LLC)

The Dark Titan was bragging in the booth the next day.

Fancy statuette is fancy!

Thanks to all our fans for voting for The Dark Titan expansion!

Anne-Marie De Witt, our CEO, accepted the award on behalf of Fireside Games because Justin De Witt, the designer and Chief Creative Officer for the company, was back at home in Texas working on the THIRD expansion. You can expect more news on that game to be coming VERY SOON!

Castle Panic and the first expansion, The Wizard’s Tower, were both Origins Awards Nominees in their respective release years, so you know the whole line is good. Fans really love the toughness of Agranok in The Dark Titan and we appreciate all the support and dedication to this line you, the fans, bring every time you see us at a show or a local game store.

Thanks to all of you for making Origins Game Fair 2016 such a success and so much fun. We’ll see you there next year. And remember… Just PANIC and Play Games!

June is a great month to get out and play some games! Our games will be available for demos and Play-to-Wins at several conventions around the country this month, as well as being in many game libraries.

If you are a fan of Orphan Black, you may have recognized a few familiar “faces” in the new Season 4 set location, Rabbit Hole Comics.

In episode 2, “Transgressive Border Crossing,” formerly separated clones Sarah and Cosima are reunited in a secret lab in the basement of a Comic shop. When Sarah and Mrs. S enter the shop we get a good little “geek out” when they pan the shop and there is an eye-catching display of our favorite games.

We caught this quick picture to show off a little. Forgive our proud little hearts. :)

If you aren’t in the Austin, TX area but want to find a local place to meet some new gamers and hang out for the day’s festivities, check out the list of participating retailers on the official Geek & Sundry International TableTop Day page to find one near you.

We have also partnered with Geek & Sundry on the official retailer event kits and there will be special, exclusive Castle Panic promo towers at 300 stores around the country. Check with individual game stores to see if they will have a kit and how they will be distributing the goodies, it will vary by location.

Hosting an event with your friends at your house or neighborhood hang out? Be sure to use the official #tabletopday hashtag to connect with people near and far! You can watch the 24-hour live stream on Twitch and see what gamers all over the world are doing to celebrate gaming this year.

Your favorite local game store not on the list? Ask if they received one of our exclusive Launch Kits for access to the special Milkshake promo card. You can also encourage them to participate in future new release events throughout the year. They can contact our Marketing team to get details.

Here, Kitty, Kitty! has been getting a lot of positive buzz lately, watch our blog for a review round up coming later this week.

The Second Edition of Bears! is now available at stores across the country! To celebrate this and help you and your friends get up and playing faster, we are partnering with the Envoy program to bring in-store demos to a store near you!

Below is a list of the stores that have signed on to host demos (listed by State). Please contact the store directly to get demo times:

Your favorite local game store not on the list? Let them know we will be offering these in-store demos throughout the year with each new release and they can participate in future events. They can contact our Marketing team to get details.

We were recently in the ATL for a distribution show and took a night out to visit Treefort Games in Fayetteville, GA.

It was a cool, calm Friday night when we pulled in to the parking lot at dusk. We got set up just in time for a group of curious players to walk up and take their seats at The Village Crone. Maureen explained the game to this crop of young witches and away they went, casting spells left and right and scattering Familiars all over the village! It was a really tight game with the last round being the true test. One misspoken spell was caught and the potential winner was left a few points shy of victory.

Meanwhile Kris was introducing a few players to the joys of backstabbing in Munchkin Panic. They embraced the spirit of the game and there were several uneasy alliances kept on the sly throughout the game. They managed to finish with 4 towers still standing! Excellent use of the bare minimum cooperation required in that game.

The second play through of The Village Crone had some veteran gamers who immersed themselves in the strategy and quickly racked up their points, choosing their schemes carefully to maximize their efforts. There were lots of laughs and plenty of thwarting of other player’s plans. After that they played Bears! and chatted about board games and themes and enjoyed their night at the table.

Kris guided a team of players through the perils of the zombie apocalypse in Dead Panic. They were having such a blast, and then one of them became a zombie. It was a test of friendship when the final two characters took a stand to fight off the horde and escape to the van together.

We enjoyed teaching so many players to play our games and getting to chat with the owner, John. He has created a great space for his local gamers and the community they have formed was warm and welcoming. Everyone seemed to know each other and inquired about family members and checked in on life.

It was really inspiring to see how the younger players look up to John and how everyone encouraged each other to be themselves and pursue their diverse interests. We feel fortunate to have gotten to be part of their world for an evening and encourage you to stop by Treefort Games if you find yourself in the Atlanta area.

Well, that was a whirlwind tour! Thirteen stops in 25 days across 6 states! No wonder we’re tired.

The leaves are changing colors and there is a distinct chill in the air. It must be the approach of autumn and the time of Witches. It’s also the 12th stop on our Something Wicked Tour as we visit Crossroad Games in Standish, Maine!

This was a quick visit on our tour as we setup The Village Crone and spent some time chatting with Lacey and Chuck about the game business while waiting for some players to finish up another game.

Pretty soon it was game on and our players wasted no time in getting down to the business of scoring schemes. Familiars were flying and Villagers were changing to frogs and back into humans faster than you could say “Eye of Newt”!

The next game was just as fun, with the Forge filling up with frogs and some quick scoring at the end that took everyone by surprise.

We stuck around to sign some games and visit with fans, then it was time to hit the road.

It was a dark and stormy night… The 13th store visit on the 13th of October. Coincidence? We think not! But we couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up our Something Wicked Tour here in New England!

We made our way to Diversions Puzzles & Games in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and met up with the Events Coordinator, Ian, who let us have our pick of tables in their very cool play space downstairs.

Diversions is another one of those “Tardis-esque” game stores that has a really small front window, but once you get inside it just keeps going to reveal a massive amount of clean, open space filled with well-organized games, clearly displayed and more puzzles than we’ve ever seen in one spot. The downstairs play space is really big and made for a really great place to run our last demos of the tour.

We had barely set up the game when the first group gathered around and before you could say “Broomstick” we had a 6-player game up and running. As more gamers flocked to see what was happening it became clear we needed to spread the fun, so we set up a second game and ran another group through that.

Once the first game ended we had just enough time to catch our breath and take some photos before we got our third group started. This turned into a huge battle with players getting caught in a defensive battle of trying to use Protection to stop the other players from completing their schemes. It may seem like it works on paper, but it’s a losing strategy and sure enough, both players ran out of ingredients and couldn’t recover. But minutes after finishing the game, there was nothing but discussion of new strategies and “next time” plans being made.

We’ve had a lot of fun crisscrossing New England, catching some of spooky sights, playing games with so many people, and getting to see more of the Friendly Local Game Stores that keep board gaming accessible and fun. Thanks for joining us on our journey. We hope you’ve had fun following along. Now make sure you pick up your own copy of The Village Crone and bring fun home!

Our weary travelers have to score two more points as they wind down the Something Wicked Tour. Can they do it? Read on and find out…

1 POINT: Search for the Unexplainable – (Lake Champlain, VT) COMPLETED
The legends of a mysterious creature that lives in Lake Champlain go back centuries. The native Americans had their stories and colonial settlers had sightings that have continued up until just a few years ago.